Iran’s Aggressive Expansion Must Be Stopped

Iran has been arming, training and fighting alongside the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Shiite militias in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon for decades — and most visibly and brutally in Syria — making sure President Bashar Assad remains in power as he slaughters more than 400,000 of his own people and sends millions fleeing to refugee camps across the Middle East and Europe since 2011.

To make matters worse, Iran is continually expanding the range of its nuclear-capable missiles and atomic weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the new proof at an elaborate televised presentation earlier this week with thousands of pictures, files and CDs Israel had obtained “a few weeks ago in a great intelligence achievement.”

Code-named Project Amad, Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program has been ongoing since the signing of the 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S., Russia and Europeans, a nuclear deal the Russians and Europeans are trying to stop President Trump from nixing on May 12.

While the debate about what nuclear program Iran has and whether it has lied and cheated to the International Atomic Energy Agency heats up, as Trump and Netanyahu argue Iran has to “Fix or Nix” the deal, one fact on the ground is undisputable. Iran is aggressively expanding its military presence directly and through its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Pretty much the entire Arab Middle East. The only exceptions are Egypt and Jordan that have signed peace treaties with Israel, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States that are now being pressed to respond militarily in Syria.

Now that Iran is expanding its military presence across the Middle East and Iranians are taking to the streets chanting “Death to the Ayatollahs and their political theocracy,” it is the right time for America, Saudi Arabia, Gulf States and Israel to stop Iran’s nuclear program and military expansion in the Middle East — and bring about regime change. Iranians are ready. The Middle East is ready and the world is ready.

I discuss at length the history of U.S.-Iran relations and the benefits of a rapprochement — and in fact encourage it in my 2007 book Custom Maid Knowledge for New World Order and point out that:

 “Islam came late to Persia, a land which boasted a rich and
 full civilization long before the Arab invaders swept from the
West. While most younger Iranians do admire Islam’s sense
of discipline, art and architecture, they have little interest in
its rigid dogma and social intolerance.
….

There is a civil uprising well under way behind closed doors
and under chadors (head-to-toe robes). Iran’s teenagers are
rebelling in the best traditions of We the Apathetic Maids —
by embracing sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll — even with the threat
of persecution and whipping.”

Nothing has really changed since then, except the teenagers have come of age, and like their contemporaries in America and the rest of the world, want an end to political corruption and a fair share of the economic benefits enjoyed exclusively by the establishment elite — the Ayatollahs and their Revolutionary Guards Corps. Iranians want their fair share of the economic pita.

More than half of the 80 million population is under 30.

The Ayatollahs and their Revolutionary Guards are not only depriving the Iranian people of what is justly theirs by gaming and corrupting the religious political system to their advantage at the expense of the people, they are also denying the long-sought peace Israel and its Arab neighbors have been searching for decades. Their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, not to mention the Shia militias in Iraq that killed Americans, is the primary cause of these ongoing conflicts that are preventing peace in the Middle East — and depriving protesting Iranians of what justly belongs to them.

Time to focus more attention on Iran, Mr. President. Time to stop Iran’s aggressive military expansion across the Middle East and bring about regime change.